The red tent was originally intended as a realm of sequester for the unclean acts of giving birth, recovering from illness and menstruating, but for the women of the film, it also becomes a secret refuge from their daily lives and a space of community, sharing, music, love and learning. “Traveling into this biblical world was exciting and new.” Actress Rebecca Ferguson was exhilarated by the role: “I love history and being a part of creating fictional stories derived from documented events,” she says. Diamant’s hand is a feminine touch on a history that is often ignorant of the stories of women, because it was recorded by the hands of men.Īlthough Dinah’s story is millennia old, it feels both accessible and modern. Dinah is never mentioned again.” In The Red Tent, Diamant turns Dinah from a voiceless victim into a woman with wants and needs.

She says nothing at all, so we can’t know her side of that story. It’s her brothers who claim that she was violated. “She does not say a single word about what happened to her with the prince in Shechem.

“It was Dinah’s silence that called to me,” explains Diamant. The story follows Dinah, the only daughter among Jacob’s 12 sons, who is given only a fleeting mention in the Genesis stories when she is taken and raped by a powerful prince. Lifetime’s presentation of those ideas, which premieres Sunday and continues Monday, is an eye-opening look into Diamant’s vision of biblical life. In The Red Tent, the bond of womanhood reaches across generations and miles and elevates women to equals with the men in their lives. Now Lifetime gives history’s forgotten women a face in the four-hour, two-night miniseries The Red Tent by re-envisioning the lives of biblical women whose actual histories have been lost to the sands of time. The bestseller has become a book club favorite because of its cross-generational appeal and frank exploration of the lives of women - especially concerning ancient fertility and birthing rituals. When author Anita Diamant’s novel The Red Tent was published, readers praised the book for giving a voice to women who had been all but ignored in ancient and sacred texts.

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Diamant the red tent